Guaranteed to Pass complete fuel system cleaner

Guaranteed to Pass complete fuel system cleaner

What can I do about if I fail a dodge neon for tail pipe emission and all the customer does is go to autozone and buys Guaranteed to Pass complete fuel system cleaner. He didn't repair anything. I had to smog it because of my free retest policy. And it pass. But I know in 2 years it will fail. did I just screw my self?

Re: Guaranteed to Pass complete fuel system cleaner

You should be OK since the initial test result at your shop was Fail. Basically you don't have to worry about FPR as long as you fail them first.

I respectfully disagree. This has happened to me literally hundreds of times in my career ... an F+ changes to a D- in a short period of time, with no help from me.

The initial fail helped your SVFR, and hurt the FuPR of the shop/tech who passed it last cycle.

The follow-up pass has no immediate effect on anything other than your short-terms, but it armed the FuPR time-bomb to go off on you at the beginning of the next cycle, assuming (rather safely) that it will fail that next initial test.

Re: Guaranteed to Pass complete fuel system cleaner

I based my post on this explanation of the FPR from the BAR site:
Smog Check inspection performance during the previous inspection cycle is measured by comparing, in the current cycle, the actual failure rate on initial tests to the expected failure rate for similar vehicles statewide. An initial inspection may be an official inspection or a pretest and is the first test performed on a vehicle in its current inspection cycle, which may be for biennial inspection, change-of-ownership, or initial registration.So understand that they are comparing initial tests. If they are comparing the latest test against the first one 2 years from now (my eventual PASS against next guy's first FAIL) then i have to say that such criteria is f'd up beyond belief. Or may be i'm just really confused about the whole thing.
Can't they just show the formula how the score is calculated exactly? Or is this algorithm is some kind of secret?

Re: Guaranteed to Pass complete fuel system cleaner

Administrator

Reactor wrote

I based my post on this explanation of the FPR from the BAR site:
So understand that they are comparing initial tests. If they are comparing the latest test against the first one 2 years from now (my eventual PASS against next guy's first FAIL) then i have to say that such criteria is f'd up beyond belief. Or may be i'm just really confused about the whole thing.

I see where you're coming from, since the language is somewhat ambiguous. My interpretation is the exact one that you say is "f'd up beyond belief". That is to say, an initial fail in this inspection cycle is a direct ding on the inspector who passed it in the previous inspection cycle, whether that previous pass was an initial pass or a pass after one or more fails. Please read that stupid 200 Mustang example again, and tell me if you see it too.

Re: Guaranteed to Pass complete fuel system cleaner

IDK, i can't tie the Mustang example to any of the scenarios. But it appears to me that FPR calculation is not based on the very same car that someone else failed 2 years after you passed it, but on the pool of similar cars. So the way i see it: the single 91 Camry you inspected 2 years ago (initial test or the final, who knows?) is now compared to all of the 91 Camry's that are being tested this year throughout the state. Not very same car.

Re: Guaranteed to Pass complete fuel system cleaner

The formula should be straight forward for this issue. Whoever passed the vehicle in it's last cycle will be judged on the vehicle's performance in this cycle. That vehicle is put into a specific group for analysis. The pass-rate of multiple vehicles within a single group is compared against the pass rate for that same group state wide.

So the "initial test" refers to the test performed this year and that individual test data is put into a group of similar vehicles for comparison.

This is how I read this data and how it was explained to me at a public workshop for STAR by the people designing this monstrosity.

So MBarry is right. Intentionally failing a vehicle on an initial tests fucks the last tech (could be you) and does not protect you from anything if you subsequently pass the vehicle.